Allan Massie is a Scottish writer who has published nearly 30 books, including a sequence of novels set in ancient Rome. His non-fiction works range from a study of Byron's travels to a celebration of Scottish rugby. He has been a political columnist for The Scotsman, The Sunday Times and The Daily Telegraph and writes a literary column for The Spectator.

The 'spare bedroom tax' is mean, oppressive, and a politically daft gift to the Left

When Nick Jenkins and Moreland call on the Maclinticks in Anthony Powell’s “Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant”, they are surprised to find that the unhappy and quarrelsome couple have taken in Carolo, the depressed violinist and former child prodigy. “Everyone must be pretty short of cash for Carolo to live with the Maclinticks as a lodger,” Moreland says. Well, of course the novel is set in the Thirties, and the lodger was then a familiar figure, especially in lower-middle-class and working-class households. (In middle-class ones, the lodger’s status might be elevated to that of a “paying guest”.) Some lodgers were transient. Others stayed for years, becoming friends of the family, useful for more than the rent they paid, acting as babysitters or dog-walkers, sometimes marrying the son or daughter of the house. The lodger was a staple figure of bedroom farces, also featuring frequently in crime fiction.

It is not clear whether the so-called “Bedroom Tax” which comes in this spring is intended to revive the practice of taking in lodgers. It applies only to tenants of councils and housing associations, who will find their housing benefit cut by an average of £14 a week if they leave a bedroom unoccupied for more than thirteen weeks. We are told that the aim of the measure is “to make better use of social housing”, either by persuading people to exchange their home for a smaller one or, presumably, by renting out their spare room. The “under-occupancy penalty” is forecast to save the taxpayer £480 million a year; housing benefit costs £20 billion.

One may be sceptical. It seems likely first that any lodger may himself or herself be in receipt of housing benefit. If so, where is the saving? Second, the cost of snooping to determine whether a room has been left unoccupied for more than the stipulated thirteen weeks is sure to be considerable. The Department of Works and Pensions estimates that the change will affect “about 600,000 people”. How many people will be recruited or diverted from other work to check up on them?

So far indignation has been aroused chiefly because the measure will apparently apply to serving members of the Armed Forces, including the TA, all of whom may be away from home leaving their bedrooms unoccupied for more than 13 weeks while they are on Her Majesty’s service. This is certainly mean and deplorable. Yet it’s a fairly nasty measure for other reasons too. Many others among the 600,000 people affected must be middle-aged couples whose children have left the parental home, but who are happy to have a spare room to accommodate children or grandchildren on occasional visits. Others are old people who will now feel they have to move to a smaller house simply because they have one spare room in the property they have occupied for years.

And what counts as a spare room anyway? It probably requires very little ingenuity to find another use for an unoccupied bedroom. Put a TV set into it and explain to the snooper that your wife (or alternatively husband) likes to watch television and you don’t.

No doubt it’s a good thing to try to cut the housing benefit bill – though the best way of doing so is to promote good-paying jobs. No doubt there’s much to be said for reviving the practice of taking in lodgers. No doubt it often makes sense for old people to move to smaller houses of flats.

None of this alters the fact that this seems a mean and rather nastily oppressive measure. It is also politically daft, a gift to the Left, providing them with the slogan: “No Mansion Tax for the Rich, a Bedroom Tax for the Poor: that’s Tory Reform for you.”